[This kit is can also be found on my Google Drive mirror.]

Note: I’ve created a Patreon to support my modelling projects. If you’ve found my work useful, have the means, and would like to support my efforts, please give it a look. I will continue to release my designs for free on Cults 3D and Thingiverse, but Patreon members will get early access and in progress updates on my new projects, and it will serve as a central location for announcements. Thanks for reading!

Following up on my recently released Galaxy and Nebula class models, I’ve been working on reconstructing the kitbashes seen in the Wolf 359 starship graveyard scene in The Next Generation episode Best of Both Worlds Part II. This kit provides parts and ship files supporting the the final ship in this series: the Niagara class, as seen in the episode as the USS Princeton.

This ships and parts files are scaled consistently, and meant to be compatible with, all of my other Star Trek Parts Kit.

See my Thingiverse and Cults 3d profile for the full list of parts kits I’ve released so far. All parts are meant to be cross-compatible between kits for your kitbashing enjoyment.

In addition to the combined ship STL files, this kit provides three additional zip files:

• niagara-ship-stls-lower-details.zip – Print-ready version of all ship files without shield grids or windows.
• niagara-parts-stls.zip – contains the kitbashable parts in STL format used to create the combined ship STL files.
• niagara-blender-files.zip – Blender source files used to create the ship and parts STLs.

Included Ships

Niagara class

The original Niagara filming model is very poorly documented. The original does not appear in any public collections and hasn’t been featured in any of the auctions that did such a good job of documenting other rare background props and models. As a result, this kit is my best effort to guess many of the details.

The Niagara’s saucer appears to be a similar part to the one created for the Freedom class, but the details, including the top decks are significantly different, and indicate a larger ship size. The three nacelles are taken from an existing Galaxy Class USS Enterprise model kit, but the secondary hull appears to be a modified version of the Ambassador’s hull.

In addition to the standard ship file, I’ve included a hypothetical earlier version of the ship, featuring Ambassador class nacelles. I’m calling this version the MK1 Niagara, where the standard version we saw in TNG was the MK2.

I also created variants of both versions without the lower nacelle, if you’re one of those people who find the tri-nacelle layout offensive.

Notes on scaling and working with Blender

My target scale for all source files and output STL files is 1:1000. Although these files have not been extensively tested through printing, they are intended to be resized to match common modelling and miniatures scales.

Blender is free, which to be honest was the primary factor in my decision to learn it. There are many fine video and text tutorials available online if you're interested in learning more. See the Blender fundamentals tutorials playlist to get started.

You can use File -> Import -> Stl (.stl) and File -> Export -> Stl (.stl) to load or save STL files in blender.

Note: This kit was built using Blender 3.5.

Post-processing STL output

Although all of the STL files included have been tested as valid watertight meshes, joining the parts together and exporting new STL files can introduce small errors that may cause issues with slicing programs. I recommend any STL files you create are checked using a program like Netfabb Basic free edition. Doing a simple "Close All Holes" repair has fixed most of the issues I've run into so far. If you do run into issues with mesh quality, please let me know.

Parts list

The following lists provide a summary of the included parts. Parts are included in the following ZIP file:

• niagara-parts-stls.zip – contains the kitbashable parts in STL format used to create the combined ship STL files.

Note these parts are not meant to be printed by themselves, they’re intended to be combined to kitbash your own ship variants. For most items, the mesh origin has been set so that when you import these objects into your 3D editor of choice, they are positioned as they would be on the sample ships provided.

Parts

Combined ship STLs

In addition to the standard ship files, additional variants are included in the following zip file:

• niagara-ship-stls-lower-details.zip – Print-ready version of all ship files without shield grids or windows.

Blender files

An additional zip file is included containing two Blender files. The first file contains the standard STL parts arranged as used in the sample ship designs, while the second contains parts-source file contains the raw blender objects used to create the parts.

• niagara-blender-files.zip – Blender source files used to create the ship and parts STLs.

License

I'm releasing this under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. You're free to distribute and modify these files (even for commercial use), provided you attribute the creator and distribute your contributions under the same license.